The most unexpected place that you ran into another Bear or Rangers stuff?

B-D B-D B-D Went into a barbershop for a shave in Seattle in 2014 and sat on the chair , my Ames was with me, the guy started talking away and said that he goes to Glasgow twice a year with his Boss to watch the football, he asked me if I supported a Glasgow team and I said yes, he said that he supported the same team as I did and I laughed, he then said WATP and said he had worked it out before I had sat down, I never had a single bit of blue on or anything that he could work it out.

He said that he just looked at my Mrs as soon as he heard the accent and the lack of the carpenter the size of a shoe told him everything he needed to know .

The guys Boss owns a whole chain of top Barber shops with shaving accessories in the fronts Grandad was an Edinburgh man who was a Bear.
 
Got a train (Rocky mountaineer) from Jasper to Vancouver. Had my Rangers baseball cap on and our train steward was a Rangers fan whose dad had emigrated to Vancouver
 
Prague 2003, a random Monday night and 4 of us walk into the sports bar on Wenceslas Square, I’m the last one in and my mate at the front has the kitty, he shouts back asking what I want and before I get a chance to answer, the 3 girls standing in front of me, from Birmingham, ask if I’m Rangers or the other mob. When I say we’re all Rangers, the 3 of them start singing the Billy Boys, my mates all turn around with the WTF looks on their faces. It was the start of a very good night.

2016 and 6 of us go to the Orlando Magics basketball match, we‘re standing in the concourse discussing beers for the seats and one of the staff walks past and asks if we’re Rangers fans, the majority are and he tells us he comes over twice a season to go to Ibrox. Next thing, he reappears with all the cheerleaders for us to get pictures taken with them.

2018, again in Orlando and golfing at a place called Mission Inn which is in Howey in the Hills, 40+ miles outside Kissimmee. Walking across to get our buggies and there standing beside his buggy is a poster from here, resplendent in his Dubai Loyal golf polo shirt. I hadn’t seen this guy for years and travelled on so many European trips with him on the Kinning Park bus. Never even knew he played golf.
 
Puerto Vallarta in Mexico.
walking along the front and went in to a restaurant for a meal. Approached the guy on the door to ask for a table and he clicks the accent and he native Mexican. Asks which team I support and say Rangers and he broke in to a huge smile and said so was he, met a Scottish bird in LA and she guided him to us and followed us ever since. Good we guy and bought us a couple of drinks.
 
Lowlands Festival 2007. Billy Boys being belted out as I got on the bus from Lelystad to Biddinhuizen.
 
Paris August 2007 maybe 1st home game v. St Mirren wife youngest daughter and 5 year old grandson in the metro after being at the Eiffel tower raging electrical thunderstorm above waiting on an empty platform when on the platform opposite appears 2 guys in working overalls I was wearing my Gers top and one shouts over "haw big man how did we get on today" had to say that I don't know I've been trying to call my dad 4 score but could not get through possibly due to the weather conditions just as our train arrived so could not find out where he's from I think we won 2-0 with Cousin scoring
 
Tobago, on a cruise, hired a local lad with a car for an island tour. He was wearing a Rangers top, and had been playing football.
They abandoned the game when the cruise ship came in.
Boys name was Ryan Stewart, asked him why the Rangers top, he replied Bi Dog plays for the Rangers.
Had to ask who Big Dog was, he said Marvin Andrews, boy got a decent tip.
 
Snake Island Nigeria, my ship tied up for 3 weeks until New contract so went up to the bosuns office for a chat with him only to find 4 Nigerians in the office after interducing myself from Scotland one guy says oh Rangers my team and has been since I was born he then showed me his tattoo of our crest on his arm.
 
Was in a nightclub in Budapest and seen a boy with a Rangers top and Jelavic on the back of it. Being pished, went up to essentially say Jelavic was the fucking man to him, only to be met with looks of blank confusion as he was foreign and didn't have a clue who I was talking about. Still baffled as to why he had a Jelavic Rangers top at all without knowing who he was, surreal :D
 
My sister lives and works in Tel Aviv. One morning while at her works office on Tel Aviv seafront, she swore that she could hear the sash being sung.

This couldn't possibly be right, so at her lunchtime she went down to see what the hell was going on.

Only to see hundreds of Rangers supporters milling around the bars on the seafront. The first sight being a big King Billy tattoo on the bare back of a not particularly svelte Rangers supporter.

It was, of course, the Hapoel Tel Aviv game in 2006 or 7(I think?). Not being a football fan she had no idea it was happening.

She went into her usual lunchtime restaurant/bar and some Scots guy was having trouble getting his food order through to the waitress (even though she said the waitress can speak English but obviously not Glaswegian) so she butted in and told the girl what the order was in fluent Hebrew and then told the Bear in her best Belfast accent, "Park yer arse down there and she'll bring it down to ye." She said the looks of amazement on the faces of the Gers fans at the table on hearing a wee Ulster woman talking to them after jabbering fluently in Hebrew, were almost as flummoxed as she was when she thought she heard the Sash being belted out on a sunny Tel Aviv midweek morning. She said she regretted having to be at work as she was sure could have drunk free all afternoon with those guys.


Any more stories of unexpected or far flung Rangers encounters?
I was on Scarborough beach in Canada and walked a fair bit over the sand dunes to the sea and was standing in awe at the view when from over another dune I heard a Scottish voice asking " Huv ye got a fag?"to which the other voice replies whilst giggling, "you no a fag's got a different meaning over here".
I walked over to have a look and the 2 of them had their Gers tops on so the 3 of us were standing all wearing our Rangers tops pishing ourselves laughing.
 
Marmaris, 2012, stayed in some fancy 5 star hotel with missus and wee man, hungover to fk and was gasping for a pint and a fry up. Ex reminded me of the football bar across the road so we slink over there and gets grub and a beer. Finishing up notice soem Rangers tops in other bit of bar and waiter notices accent when paying bill and leave a tip. Heading out hear a commotion in the back kitchen as waiter went in back and all we can hear is a scream in broken English from the cooks "FUUUUCK DA POOOOOOPE!!!" hahahahaha was laughing for weeks at that
 
Told it before but was over for the hockey in Sweden about 10 years ago. Sitting in some pub in the middle of Stockholm watching some of the local games on the TV and a couple of older guys are over from St Louis. The recognise what sounds like English and they end up talking to us. Ask if we are from Scotland. Answer yes, then (cynically) wait for the "do you know *some cùnt* from Aberdeen?" type of question.

Nope. "Rangers or Celtc" was the next question. One of the guys was a mad bluenose from afar. Not even a passing interest - the guy was well and truly clued up. Ended up sitting for a good couple of hours talking everything Rangers and how we'd get on in the game against that mhob the next day.
 
In 2005 in a clatty looking little pub called the Edinburgh Castle, in San Francisco’s Tenderloin area, there was a framed photograph on the wall of the 1910 Rangers team.
The frame looked as old as the photo, it looked class.

To cut a long story short that framed photo is now in a good home, as the then Korean owners of the bar said my friend could take it away.

 
Rural Thailand near Cambodian border, saw a wee guy wearing a tatty auld septic top (i was wearing my colours as always), to be honest, i decided he would've been absolutely f'kin mystified why i was choking the life out of him (so i didn't). A very happy wee Thai hotel worker in Krabi promised with all his heart to wear my donated Rangers jersey (white NTL one from around 2010 i think).
 
We did a Yellowstone tour a few years back and one of the ladies working in one of the tour shop noticed my Rangers polo shirts and asked me if I had enjoyed the game at the weekend. I noticed her “faint” Scottish accent and she told me she moved over to the USA 30 years back but she still watched our games as much as she could.

Anybody see any locals wearing Rangers tops in Kazakhstan/Russia (Aksai/Orenburg) area, good chance I supplied them as over the years I must have donated approx 50 tops to one of the big orphanages there.
Well done sir.
 
Maybe slightly different. Used to be a delivery driver. As anyone knows crossmaglen in south Armagh isn’t a place you see a Rangers top (unless it’s GAA crossmaglen Rangers)

one day I was doing a delivery down round there, absolutley pissing it down. Only coat I had lying in the van was an Rangers raincoat I had. Said to myself f*ck I’ll only be 2 seconds so threw the coat on and took the stuff into the shop. The shop assistant was surprised to say the least and he told me I must have been the first person in his 50 years living in crossmaglen to wear a Glasgow Rangers top in the village :))
I wore my Rangers jersey in Crossmaglen (XMG) nearly every day, I did wear my body armour on top as well though :))
 
I was walking down a hill in Chinatown, San Francisco. 3 people, all in Gers tops,
Crossed the road in front of us.
 
Living and working in Germany many year ago on the building sites, on on our break I was reading the Bild daily paper which had the football results from Scotland in it, in comes a new guy on site talking away in German, 2 days later he heard me talking, looks at me and say ffs your Scottish, I thought you were a German cos I was reading paper, I was only looking a results turns out he was Scottish as well and a Rangers man, we had some nights out after that.
 
Posted this in the oil and gas thread years ago in the lounge.
On holiday mixed company in Corfu, MoJo had just signed.
Flight was delayed for 6 hours so we headed into Corfu town.
Just pottering about getting our bearing see a random wee bar, think that will do.
In we go big Rangers team photo behind the bar, Tim’s are raging.
Right good laugh with the owner, he had worked on the rigs as a chef all the workers he said were bears so he started supporting us, saved his dosh and bought the bar.
As we were leaving he burst into “mo mo super mo” some of us all rolling about, the Tim’s wanting to torch the place.
 
Back in the mid-nineties, had been playing football somewhere up in the New Territories of Hong Kong, and went for a drink afterwards in a nondescript pub in the local housing estate, and there was a framed picture of the then Rangers team on the wall. The bar staff didn't seem to know why, but it gave me a reason to stay and have more than the one.

Maybe not quite on topic, but lived in Bangkok a few pages back in the diary, and the missus, who's Thai, said that when she'd been getting off the skytrain on Sukhumvit earlier in the day, a guy wearing a Rangers shirt, who she took to be a tourist, was stepping on. As they passed, she said 'We are the people!' The guy paused in initial surprise, clearly not expecting this from a local, then broke out into a big smile.

In Tokyo one time, sitting at the bar in Popeye's trying to make a dent in its tap list of 70 craft beers, got talking to the Japanese guy next to me, who when he realised I was Scottish started talking about Brewdog having just opened in the city, then football came up and I told him that I was a Rangers fan. He seemed to know half the pub, and any time a friend approached he's introduce me as "Rangers not Celtic", which seemed to go down well despite them having had Nakamura, who the Japanese are understandably proud of on account of him having played in Europe and for his career in the national team, play for them a few years previously.

About six months ago, met one of Kai Johansen's sons in a Singapore pub, introduced by an English pal of his who'd clocked my Rangers top.
 
George Town Grand Cayman, wife and I with the 2 kids were in the Marriott , we had bought the boys the new Rangers tops just before we left and had not told them ! Arrived , let them open the case and seen their faces light up as we had packed them on top with the plan for them to find them ! On go the tops and We went out for dinnner and as we step out the hotel grounds a wee 4x4 drives past and the driver is by now out the window and shouting “mon the Gers” as he drives by! kids were blown away , later in the holiday we walked along towards the main town and there was a wee Irish bar , parked outside was the 4x4 and the spare wheel cover was a Rangers one ! In wee pops and the boy behind the bar immediately sees us and welcomes us with a beer for me and cokes for wife and weans !! Kids were blown away that we’d find a bear in the middle of a wee island miles away from home !
 
On the Hill?

If you pictured the two traditional stands as 12 o'clock then our seats were about quarter to the hour. :)
We were quite near the pitch and I almost melted until the sun went round after lunch and we were in the shadows. I wondered why my brothers Aussie mate brought a bundle of towels to the game. It was to sit on and prevent our arses swimming in our own sweat on the plastic seats.

Drank lots of beer and had a great day.
 
Lived in Dublin for ten years. Got in contact with a fellow bear via the house estate group Facebook chat on something random. Turns out he has been my neighbour round the corner for 3 and a half years and we never had a fucking scooby. We are never out each others houses now for the games
 
Believe it or not, Ibrox!!!

Living near Burton on Trent these days, my brother and I and a few of our English pals came up to Ibrox last February for the Aberdeen game. A couple of them new to Ibrox, a couple of them not.

So for the new ones, tradition ensued and we had a photo taken of the group of us in front of the JG memorial statue, as follows: I pull my phone out of my pocket and ask a random by-standing Bear to take the photo of us. He duly obliges and, once he’s done, we exchange the normal pleasantries (he’s not heard my English speaking mates’ accents prevailing at this point).

He then proceeds to pull a business card out of his pocket and says, if yous are ever down in the Midlands, pop into our RSC. It’s the leader of the Thringstone Loyal RSC in Loughborough, not half an hour away from where we live.

Random coincidence / small world and all that.

Anyway, it amused me...
 
Lying on the beach in Cape Verde. Shades on and people watching/listening as you do. Spent almost 30 mins trying to work out the foreign accent of 2 slightly older couples near us.

One of the lads sat up and I noticed a Rangers crest tattoo so I initiated conv in slow English.

Turns out they were from Peterhead
I’m amazed you could understand a word they said (insert angel smiley here).

Speaking of Rangers tattoos... I was waiting for my wife outside a store in Disney world. Saw a guy about 20 yards away standing with his kid.
I noticed he had a Rangers crest on his calf. He caught me looking at it. He narrowed his eyes, I narrowed mine and both of us just knowingly nodded at each other.
It all sounds a bit homo erotic but it was just two Bears who knew the score :D
The next day I bumped into a guy that sat a few rows behind me in the Enclosure, hadn’t seen him for about 15 years. A few weeks later and I bumped into him again on PRW after the first game of the season!
Apologies to the OP for deviating from the thread :p
 
12th of May 1996. Bari vs Juventus. The next game Juve play would be the champions league final and Bari are already relegated, so this should be a walkover for Juve. Buzzing for a goal fest.
Walking up to the stadium and we noticed a guy with the Rangers, black, full length puffer jacket on. This is in May, in southern Italy!
I waved at him and shouted something like up the Gers or mon the Rangers, he runs over and starts hugging and bouncing about like a long lost friend. We get speaking to him and his mates, and they tell us they have a bar that they frequent that is Rangers friendly. After the shit game, we go to their bar in a little town called Rutigliano, and it turns out that Italians are not that bothered about religion, which I knew anyway. They knew some songs, and we taught them the words to some more.
 
Zhuhai China. Hogmanay last year, a bunch of off shore Sheep shaggers, turns out 2 of them were bears, they were as shocked to see me as I was them!
 
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San Francisco, nearly 20 years ago.

Was in a bar one night watching a middle aged woman singing and playing guitar.

Went up and asked for a song as she was doing requests. She heard the accent and her eyes lit up. Suddenly her voice dropped about 3 octaves and this broad men’s Scottish voice came out. Turned out it was a dude, halfway through a sex change, and he/she had grown up about 5 minutes away from me in Paisley, and asked how the Rangers were doing!
 
Saw the earlier post from the guy who was in Grand Cayman and it brought back memories. My wife and I were on a cruise a few years ago that stopped at Grand Cayman. We had been out and about doing some shopping when the inevitable happened after a few bevvies, I was bursting for a single fish!! I told my wife I had to dash to the nearest bog in my loudest voice, when I saw a startled couple look over. The guy runs up to me and said, "Are you the the guy that runs the Rangers club in Orlando?" I had no idea who it was, but being a fellow Bear I wanted to talk to him all day. Almost pis*ed by drawers blethering for ages, but to meet a fellow Gers fan it was worth it. A million miles from home and it made my day!!
 
Rural China, a small city by their standards called Dazhou. Was in a restaurant with Chinese workers when I get a tap from a big Aussie who had come over to say hello for no other reason than I was a fellow round eye, we proceed to get stuck into the bevvy.

An hour or so in we get on the topic of sport, and I mention I support Rangers; the big Aussie unprompted breaks i to the Sash, which I join in with a restaurant full of Chinese are looking on thinking WTF.

Turns out the Aussie had ancestry and relations from Ulster, great night.
 
I was in the Blue Room in New York watching a game, and got talking to a guy in a Gers top while outside having a fag.
He had a broad NY accent and when I asked him how he started supporting Rangers, he told me he got the bug from his mum who was Scottish.
Turns out, she lived 5 minutes walk from me in EK.
The guy posts on here.
Went to my sister in laws wedding in New York 14 years ago.
Done all the sights and popped into the Blue Room when we were there also.
Had a few beers with the locals.

Bloomingdales was not far from it if I remember right ?
 
Bumped into bears in various places over the years. Some that I remember:-

Whilst working in DSME shipyard, Geoje, South Korea in 2004.
Watching Klitschko v Haye in a bar in Vegas 2011
Walking through a shopping centre in Pune, India last January.
Whilst sitting In a bar in Houston in 2012.
I got into a lift in a DSME office block in 2016.
Lift stops at a floor and an old Philipino guy gets In wearing a Rangers goalie top. He worked at sea and had been based around Aberdeen at one time and one of the lads on his Ship gave him the shirt.

I took some Korean guys to a few games at Ibrox. I send over shirts, scarfs and baseball caps for their kids. One of the guys said his old dad loved the baseball cap and kept it. Just before lockdown his old dad went on a tour of China for a month. Every photo he sent me, his dad had the cap on.
Always thought of some Bear visiting rural China and bumping into an OAP Korean wearing the latest cap.
 
If you pictured the two traditional stands as 12 o'clock then our seats were about quarter to the hour. :)
We were quite near the pitch and I almost melted until the sun went round after lunch and we were in the shadows. I wondered why my brothers Aussie mate brought a bundle of towels to the game. It was to sit on and prevent our arses swimming in our own sweat on the plastic seats.

Drank lots of beer and had a great day.
That's the Brewongle Stand.

Reason I asked is because I thought it may have been me. I essentially didn't miss a day's play at the SCG between about 95 and 05 (and been to plenty since too) and I can remember many times getting on the cans and having random conversations about Scottish football. Mostly its because someone is wearing a recognisable top, but sometimes I just hear the accent. But alas, I never sit in the Brewongle.

P.S. when you say "near the pitch", I think you mean "near the fence". In cricket, the pitch is the centre square only.
 
That's the Brewongle Stand.

Reason I asked is because I thought it may have been me. I essentially didn't miss a day's play at the SCG between about 95 and 05 (and been to plenty since too) and I can remember many times getting on the cans and having random conversations about Scottish football. Mostly its because someone is wearing a recognisable top, but sometimes I just hear the accent. But alas, I never sit in the Brewongle.

P.S. when you say "near the pitch", I think you mean "near the fence". In cricket, the pitch is the centre square only.

The guy was from Airdrie and my cricket terminology has been enhanced. :)

It was the test match that Andy Symonds had the spat with Harbhajan Singh.
 
The guy was from Airdrie and my cricket terminology has been enhanced. :)

It was the test match that Andy Symonds had the spat with Harbhajan Singh.
Oh man, that’s one of my favourite tests ever. Pup took three late wickets at the death on day 5 to win the game. I was going absolutely bananas. 2007, I think, it was.
 
Had a brief exchange with an Australian guy in a pub in the middle of nowhere in Walpole (South West Australia) this week. I was wearing this season's third shirt and he was asking me about Rangers, Gerrard and how far we were ahead. Turns out he followed us when he lived in Kirkmichael and Helensburgh a few years back.

A long way from Perth or any major city and the famous badge is still recognised.
 
Sunny Beach, Bulgaria.

Union Jack with We Are The People across the front was hanging on a wall inside a building. Can’t remember what the building was as I was out all day and night and I just caught it out the corner of my eye as I was walking back to the hotel at 07:30am.
 
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